Birders take tally of feathered friends

More than 20 members of the North Shore Bird Club and other expert birders from throughout the state braved freezing temperatures Dec. 28 to conduct a count of every bird they could find within a 15-mile radius of the city of Slidell. Participants in the 18th annual Slidell count, a component of the 111th annual international Audubon Christmas Bird Count, arrived in their designated area in 27 degree weather, which warmed to 55 degrees by midday.

Two Great egrets jockey for position around a small pond near the mouth of the Tchefuncte River south of Madisonville, during the 111th National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. Each year, thousands of volunteers throughout the Americas document bird populations to gauge the health of the populations and to help guide conservation. Counts were conducted in east and west St. Tammany Parish.

Count organizer Tom Trenchard of Covington, said the goal of the event is to sight and identify as many bird species as possible, in a designated area. Findings are compiled, verified and submitted to the National Audubon Society. Trenchard said they always hope to site some of the unusual birds on their lists — and this year did not disappoint.

“We had 131 different species of birds sighted from dawn to dusk, which beats last year’s count of 122,” Trenchard said. “We missed a few species we expected, but we had two unusual hummingbirds which require documentation to be a part of the list.”

Other birds that made the official count list were a bald eagle, Redhead duck, Canvasback duck, Common Goldeneye duck, Inca dove, a Kestrel, Merlin and Peregrine falcon, American Woodcock, Red-cockaded woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe Flycatcher, Brown Creeper, as well as winter wrens and an estimated 1,000 Killdeer.

However, species they had hoped to see but did not were Pine Siskins, White-crowned sparrows, Vesper sparrow, Bachman’s sparrow, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Barred owls, White-winged dove, Ruby-throated hummingbirds and Black-chinned hummingbirds.

“We should have gotten plenty of Cedar Waxwings, but we didn’t get any,” Trenchard said, adding that someone had sighted a Ferruginous hawk west of Lake St. Catherine prior to the count but not the day of the count.

“It would have been good to have that on our count, because it is rare in our state,” he said, adding that it is the largest American hawk with leg feathers all the way to its toes. “However, it was not sighted on our count day so we cannot include it on our list.”

Working the area near Thompson Road, Trenchard and his group sighted Turkey vultures, Red hawks and Wood ducks as well as Pileated woodpeckers and a Hairy woodpecker.

“We have a number of generous homeowners that let us into their yard every year,” Trenchard said. “The area is a good mix of habitat with some access to water, mowed grassy lawns, as well as mixed hardwood and pines.”

Covington resident Linda Beall, a hummingbird expert, spent her day traveling to several homes in the Slidell area to document winter hummingbirds where hummingbirds are regularly sighted by the homeowners.

She was excited to capture a few birds that she had not only captured and banded previously but was surprised and delighted to capture a Calliope hummingbird and what turned out to be the find of the day, an Allen’s hummingbird from coastal California. Both birds will require documentation to be included on the list because they are not typically found in this area.

“It’s always great to get an Allen’s on the count or at any time, but I will have to complete a lot of paperwork to confirm the sighting for the Louisiana Bird Records Committee,” Beall said.

While most of those counting were on land, south shore residents Chris Le Rouge and Glenn Ousset were in a boat counting birds in Lake Pontchartrain and along the shoreline from Carr Drive to Bayou Lacombe. “The water at the boat launch was frozen when we got there in the morning, but the day got better as the sun came up,” said Chris Le Rouge of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The tide was extremely low so we couldn’t get into the ponds but had to look over the banks to get a view of the shore birds.”

Le Rouge has participated in the Slidell count since 1997 while Ousset joined the group about five years ago. Some of the birds they sighted were a Merlin, a small falcon, as well as a bald eagle sitting on a stump near a lot of shore birds as if selecting his lunch.

“A majority of the birds we saw were rafting out on the lake so we would drift slowly toward them to get a good idea of the number and species,” Le Rouge said, adding that it was good to see the eagle in about the same area it has been sighted in the past two years.

“It is a sign that Big Branch is providing a good food source and nesting site for the eagle,” he said.

They were delighted to see Osprey and surprised to see about 150 Killdeer, an active shorebird and about 1,500 American Coots, which is a black-bodied common waterbird often mistaken for a duck.

“We thought we would see more diversity in the ducks,” Le Rouge said. “But we did see diving ducks and loons.”

Ousset enjoyed his first foray into the lake on count day. While Le Rouge captained the boat, Ousset was busy sighting and documenting the birds.

“We saw pretty much what we expected and hoped to see but did not see anything in way of rare birds,” Ousset said. “We had lots of ducks including 300 Bufflehead, 200 Lesser Scaup, 30 Blue-winged, 20 Green-winged Teal, about a half dozen Common Loons but not a lot of variety of freshwater ducks.”

“Chris did his own share spotting and counting,” Ousset said. “He knows the ducks and some birds very well.”

The duo also spotted about 150 American White pelicans and 50 Brown pelicans with many of the Brown pelicans perched on piers and in trees while the White pelicans floated in shallow water.

Counting birds on land, New Orleans resident Joelle Finley and Rosemary Seidler from Shreveport covered the area east of the I-10 twin spans and into Slidell up to Fritchie Park.

“There used to be some nice habitat along the lake near I-10, but now the area along the lake is a wasteland for natural habitat because of all of the development in that area,” Finley said, adding that she studied the area years ago as a college student. “We didn’t see much in that area.”

Despite the bleak beginning of her day, Finley enjoyed getting to count birds in Fritchie Park where the thick woodlands and walking trail provided good areas for birding. They also encountered a wooded area destroyed by Hurricane Katrina that is providing great habitat for woodpeckers.

The women ended up counting 82 species in their count area, which they have covered in past years. Although they did not find any unusual birds during the day, there were a good number of Black-crown Night Herons off Lake Road and were delighted to draw a small Marsh Wren out of the brush with a bird call from an Ipod.

“We were able to get some pretty good pictures of the wren where we have seen it on a few previous counts,” Finley said.

On the other side of the twin spans, Mandeville resident Bill Wayman, Cathy diSalvo and her father, Bob Eble, were able to locate three mature bald eagles and about 10 Red-tailed hawks in the Fritchie Marsh area.

Wayman has been covering that area for the past four years now and knows where to find the birds. They counted a few more species than last year, but nothing very different.

They saw ducks on the ground, including about four dozen Redhead ducks, fewer gulls than expected and three Inca doves, which have been more common in this area in recent years. Wayman was delighted to see so many ducks in his count area.

“It’s always interesting to see how many you get on a count,” he said. “One year you might see just a few, then another year you might see a much greater number; it’s just the way they stop in on the day you are counting and where they are in the lake any given day.”

Wayman added that in years past, there have been as many as a quarter-million ducks in the lake. He said the numbers decline and rise depending upon many factors, including the quality of the water, what food sources are available to them as well as weather and other factors.

“I enjoy counting the same area every year because the more you know it, the more birds you get on your count list,” he said.